Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi
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YEAR-WISE DEVELOPMENTS
As of 2025
Kumaraswamy K, February 11, 2025: The Times of India
Pune : A little over two years ago, Maaya Rajeshwaran Revathi lost in straight sets in the quarterfinals of a Grade 3 ITF junior event in Pune. “I don’t lose often. Maybe I will win it next year,” Maaya, then just 13, had declared. Twelve months later, she did exactly that.
Any lingering apprehensions were swept away at last week’s Mumbai Open, a WTA 125 event. Unranked a week earlier, the 15-year-old Coimbatore girl now appears on the WTA charts at No. 646, putting her in the top-20 of highest ranking achieved on debut. The list includes Jennifer Capriati, Gabriela Sabatini, Monica Seles and the Williams sisters, among others. The teenager’s arrival already spells hope for a beleaguered Indian tennis scene — starved of success, battered by apathy of the officialdom, and a court case against the national body.
Imran Mirza, who once famously nurtured a prodigy, is very impressed. “Her temper- ament is the most impressive part,” Mirza, father-coach to Sania, told TOI, “She seemed very level-headed. That’s something one needs to go to the highest level.
“We put a lot of pressure in India. With Sania, that was one thing we had to always control, the kind of external pressure there was,” explained Mirza. “There’s already so much excitement with that one performance. She has a long way to go. We have to make sure she’s not pressured into thinking that she’s the only (one).”
According to Imran, Maaya’s parents — father Rajeshwaran who deals in procurement of construction raw materials, and mother Revathi, who co-owns a small business — are best placed to nurture her temperament. “A child is bothered about what the parents think, not what the whole world thinks. Once the fear of losing comes in, it’s very difficult to remove that,” he said. Maaya’s mentality reflects in her aggressive game. Even at 13, she wouldn’t hesitate to put away a moonball.
Manoj Kumar, coach since she was 10, said, “We impressed upon her that to compete with the world’s best ju- niors, she needed to be aggressive and at the same time become a bit more consistent.”
Kumar underlined that Maaya was yet to complete her junior career. “She hasn’t yet transitioned into the women’s circuit. She has done well in one tournament, she needs to do it regularly,” he said.
Transition to the pros has always proved the biggest hurdle in Indian tennis. Maaya seems to come well prepared. A little over five-feet-seven in her shoes, she has a good couple of more years to grow, putting on four kgs of muscle mass over the past year. “I eat like a beast,” she said recently.
With the Rafa Nadal Academy offering her a one-year scholarship, the Indian is in a group of four players who are monitored by two head coaches and assistants. Last month, Miguel Fragoso accompanied her for junior events in India, but she can also summon the familiarity of Kumar in her corner.
While the teenager will continue with schooling in Spain, Imran cautioned against too much tinkering with technique. “In Europe, most of the training is more suited to the clay-court game,” he said, “There can be exceptions, (but) we seem to be more suited to hard courts because we have more skill in our hands, and in our joints than in the feet.”
